


When It's All Said and Done

by DisguisedasInnocent



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 06:29:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7833889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisguisedasInnocent/pseuds/DisguisedasInnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the game, when it has been said and done, and there's nothing left to give, you have to pick up the pieces and carry on. Tobin is the one that helps Christen to pick up her pieces after a hard loss to Sweden in the Olympic Games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When It's All Said and Done

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt: Things you said after it was over.

Tobin let herself sink down slowly into the soft comfort of her bed as the weight of the day’s emotions caught up with her and slammed down onto her shoulders. “Fuck,” the dark haired woman muttered, her voice and tone tinged with annoyance and regret. Memories of the day played back through her mind—Alex, running up the middle of the field into space, Carli, with the ball at her feet but without a pass to make, Christen, squaring a perfect ball onto the frame of the goal only for it to be blocked by a defender’s body. Each moment stung, but none more so than the last, because Tobin knew what that goal would have meant to Christen--her girlfriend.

“Do you want the room tonight?” Morgan asked softly as she hovered nervously around the side of her own bed. The young midfield player rocked back and forth on her heels, a sad expression etched onto her lips, as she clutched her pyjamas in her hands.

“I...” Tobin paused, a frown marring her lips, before she reached for her phone. “I don’t know? She hasn’t replied.” 

“She’s rooming with Mal, right?” Morgan queried with a tilt of her head. “Do you want me to text her and ask about Chris?”

“Why don’t you invite Mal here,” Tobin offered after a moment of thought, “I’ll take her key card and go find Chris after. I doubt she’s still in the room.”

Morgan nodded her head even as she pulled her phone of the pocket of her jogging pants and began to form a text to Mallory Pugh. Tobin let her eyes drift closed as she collapsed backwards onto the bed. She drew a deep breath in through her nose, held it, and then blew it out through her mouth expelling her nerves along with it. The dark haired woman laid still until she heard Morgan’s phone buzz on the bedside table. 

“That Mal?” Tobin asked, turning her head to catch sight of Morgan sit up on the bed as she reached for the small device.

“Yes,” Morgan hummed in reply, “she says that she’ll be right over, and that you’re right, Chris isn’t in their room.”

“I didn’t think she would be.” Tobin murmured. “She’ll be in the gym, probably.”

“She blames herself?” Morgan asked with a soft voice.

Tobin nodded her head slowly, “she does.” 

“She shouldn’t.” Morgan muttered. “Today wasn’t Chris’s fault. It should never have gone to penalties... We just couldn’t score.”

“I know.” Tobin sighed. “I’ve tried to tell her that already, but... You know the way that she feels the pressure; being subbed on, then not being able to score in extra time only to be told that she’s taking the fifth penalty. I don’t know what Jill was thinking with that.”

“Me neither,” Morgan agreed with a puff of her cheeks and a grimace. “I still don’t know why you didn’t take a penalty either, or why Kriegs wasn’t on the field.”

“If Kriegs was on the defence Sweden wouldn’t have had a shot.” Tobin grunted as she hoisted her bag out from underneath the bed to deposit her pyjamas and her phone inside ready for Mal’s arrival. “Heck, I don’t know why Kriegs was pretty much benched for this entire tournament. The best right back in the world and she’s benched.” 

“I know.” Morgan groaned, her hands flopping over her face, muffling her voice. “I didn’t have any idea what the line-up was doing half the time.” 

“Neither did Jill.” Tobin commented in response, her voice tainted with both frustration and annoyance. “She fucked Chris around this year. A hand full of minutes here, a handful of minutes there, subbing in at the last second to waste some time… You don’t do that with someone as good as Chris.” 

“You don’t have to tell me that.” Morgan agreed with a sharp jerk of her chin as she let her head fall to the side to rest against the wall. The younger woman opened her mouth as if to speak once more before a knock rattled against the door. “That’ll be Mal. Go and find your girl.” 

“On it.” Tobin smiled softly and slid off the end of her bed, bending to retrieve her bag, before striding to the door and tugging it open. “Evening Baby Mal.” 

“Ugh,” Mal grumbled giving Tobin a roll of her eyes. “I’ve told you not to call me that.”

“I know.” Tobin grinned. “But, you’re still the baby of the team.”

Mal fought the urge to pout and roll her eyes as she held out her key card. “Go get your girl and leave me alone.” She grumbled playfully.

“Enjoy your sleepover.” Tobin smirked before slipping out of the door.

The dark haired woman hiked her bag up onto her shoulder and turned down the corridor toward Mal’s, and Christen’s, room. The woman’s eyes skipped across the door numbers as she padded down the hallway, ignoring the quiet sounds of her teammates behind those doors, her ears and eyes pricked for any sign of Christen. Tobin came to a stop outside of the woman’s room and pushed the key card into its reader before pressing down on the door-handle. 

“Christen?” Tobin called out tentatively peering around the door. 

Silence met her query. 

A sad sigh escaped Tobin’s mouth as the woman pushed the door open further to sling her bag inside the room. Tobin cast her eyes out over Christen’s pristinely made bed searching for the woman’s discarded phone without success. “Right,” Tobin puffed out her cheeks, “time to check the gym.” The woman turned on her heel, tugged the key card out of the scanner, and pulled the door closed in one fluid motion before taking off down the hotel corridor toward the small internal gym.

It took five minutes for Tobin to negotiate the hotel corridors and descend the stairs to the hotel’s small visitor gymnasium. The dark haired woman glanced through the glass doors and spotted a slender figure jogging on the treadmill before she inserted her key card into the door and slipped through into the room. “Hey,” Tobin called out across the empty room in an effort to catch Christen’s attention. 

The woman on the treadmill faltered at the sound of another person’s voice and turned their head back toward the doorway. “Tobin,” Christen’s lips flickered upward into a slight smile before her expression dropped from her face, “what are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” Tobin replied quietly, “obviously.”

“Why?” Christen cocked her head questioningly as she slowed the pace of the treadmill to a walk.

“Because I knew you’d be here, doing this,” Tobin answered with a wave of her hand to the treadmill, “blaming yourself.”

“Oh.” Christen frowned, her lips pursing, as she watched Tobin walk around the various pieces of exercise equipment to come to a stop beside her treadmill. 

“Oh indeed.” Tobin murmured, reaching up to turn the treadmill off. “Everyone’s worried about you.” 

“They shouldn’t be.” Christen muttered with a shake of her head. “I let you down.”

“No.” Tobin shook her head fiercely. “You didn’t let anyone down Chris. No one blames you at all.” 

“I blame me.” Christen whispered as a reply. The dark haired woman’s eyes flitted away from Tobin’s powerful gaze, preferring to look over the woman’s shoulder instead of into her eyes.

“You shouldn’t.” Tobin said as she clasped her fingers around Christen’s wrists to tug the woman off the motionless treadmill. Tobin pulled Christen forward into the younger woman stood directly in front of her. “You played your heart out Chris, I saw that, the rest of the team saw that, the fans saw that. You’re not to blame, not one bit.”

“I couldn’t convert the penalty.” Christen murmured softly, her voice weak and crackling. “I couldn’t even get it on frame.”

“So what?” Tobin asked. “Messi did the exact same thing not that long ago, and he’s still thought of as one of the best players in the world.” 

“But…” Christen frowned and pursed her lips. “I’ve already barely had any minutes… and now this.” 

“We both know that your lack of minutes is fucking stupid.” Tobin smiled, lifting her hand to brush her fingers across Christen’s cheek as she moved to wipe away the tear that trickled down Christen’s face. “You’ve got that touch Chris. You’ve got something special.”

“I couldn’t…” Tears welled up in Christen’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she dipped her head to avoid Tobin’s eyes. “I let you down.” 

“Hey, hey,” Tobin murmured softly—comfortingly—as she wrapped Christen up in her arms. “No you didn’t. You didn’t let anyone down. I swear.”

“I missed it.” Christen whispered brokenly into the curve of Tobin’s neck as she clutched at the sides of the woman’s shirt tightly.

“So did Alex.” Tobin soothed, rubbing her knuckles up and down Christen’s back, her voice calm and gentle. “No one blames you Baby.”

“I wanted it so bad this time. I… I wanted to prove myself.” Christen whimpered, digging her nails into the soft fabric of Tobin’s shirt.

Tobin pulled back slightly from Christen in order to cup one hand underneath the woman’s jaw and pull it up until their eyes met. “You have nothing to prove Baby.” Tobin vowed, her voice strong and resolute. “You are one of the best strikers in the entire world. Jill might not be able to see that, but she’s not even able to see that Kriegs is the best right back in the world and leaving her on the bench is fucking stupid.” 

A small, tentative, smile formed on Christen’s lips at the vehemence of Tobin’s words. “What if… What if I don’t make the next roster?”

“Then Jill will be making the singular worst mistake since putting me at right back.” Tobin answered fiercely. “But, you will.”

“This was meant to be your tournament,” Christen mumbled, a frown marring her lips, lifting her eyes to meet Tobin’s gaze directly.

Tobin let her shoulders rise and then fall in a shrug. “So what?” She asked with a small carefree smile etched onto her lips. “I’ll make the next tournament mine, or the one after that, this isn’t going to be our last shot Chris. We’ve got at least another cycle left in us, I mean, just look at Christie.”

A small ball of warmth formed in Christen’s chest at the sound of Tobin’s words and the complete belief that shone in the woman’s brown eyes. “You really believe that?”

“I do.” Tobin replied with a nod of her head. “I believe in you Christen.”

“Oh.” The younger woman blinked suddenly almost as if in surprise.

Tobin’s fingers brushed along the curve of Christen’s cheek and tugged a handful of stray hairs behind the woman’s ear as she looked into her eyes. “And,” Tobin continued, her voice soft but resolute, “I’ll believe in you even when you don’t believe in yourself. I know what you’ve got to offer Chris, I’ve seen it, every morning out on those practise fields. That penalty was a fluke; you’ve kicked that ball at least a thousand times and you’ve only ever missed about ten. That match wasn’t on you to win, it was on the team to lose it, and as a team, we lost it.”

“How do you always know the right things to say?” Christen asked quietly, her voice a mixture of soft affection and bemusement.

“I know you’d want to hear the truth, so I’m telling you the truth.” Tobin answered with a lift of her shoulders. “We made a lot of mistakes, but the person that made the biggest mistakes wasn’t even on the field.”

Christen swayed forward to bury her face in the side of Tobin’s neck while her arms slipped around the woman’s back and fisted the back of her shirt. “I love you.” The dark haired woman whispered against Tobin’s skin. “Thank you.”

“Any time.” Tobin murmured in reply as she wrapped one arm around Christen’s shoulders while the other one came up to cradle the back of the woman’s head. “Now, do you want to go back to your room? I foisted your roommate onto mine for the night so we can share.”  
“Oh, you did, did you?” Christen chuckled. The dark haired woman laid a soft kiss on Tobin’s pulse point before she pulled away from the woman’s neck to look into her eyes. 

“Well,” Tobin grinned as she leant forward to plant a kiss on Christen’s waiting lips, “I knew if I wanted to be able to cuddle you tonight I’d have to get rid of the Baby.”

A loud bark of laughter escaped Christen’s mouth at the sound of Mal’s nickname. “Oh, I hope you didn’t call her that.” 

“Only the once,” Tobin replied with a shrug of her shoulders and a smile, “you know what it’s like with kids… You’ve got to keep them on their toes.” 

“You’d know.” Christen said affectionately as she shook her head. 

Tobin narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, “are you accusing me of something?” she asked playfully.

“Nope,” Christen replied, popping the word, “nothing at all.” 

“Hmm,” Tobin hummed, “come on. There’s a nice clean bed waiting for us, and I for one want to get into it and snuggle.”

Christen disentangled her arms from around Tobin’s torso and reached down to clasp the woman’s left hand with her right. “Come on then,” she murmured as she squeezed the woman’s fingers.

Ten minutes, a quick change of clothes, and a trip to the bathroom to go through her nightly routine Tobin lay on her side under the covers of Christen’s bed waiting for the younger woman to join her. Tobin listened to the sound of Christen’s electric toothbrush clicking off and the trickle of running water before she lifted the covers off the bed just in time for the bathroom door to open. “I thought I’d get the bed warm for you.” Tobin said with a playful smile etched onto her lips.

“Or,” Christen chuckled as she slipped underneath the covers before scooting back to press her spine flush against Tobin’s torso, “you just wanted to make sure you got into the prime ‘big spoon’ position.” 

“Guilty as charged.” Tobin whispered into the curve of Christen’s shoulder, her left hand slipped underneath Christen’s neck, while her right hooked itself around the woman’s hip.

Christen snuggled backward into Tobin’s embrace, before she reached down with her right hand to twine her fingers through Tobin’s hand on her hip. “It’s a good job I like you as the big spoon.” 

“A very good job.” Tobin agreed as she pressed one last soft kiss to Christen’s shoulder blade before her eyes fluttered closed.


End file.
